Worldly Love Versus God’s Love Part 1

What do you think of when I say the love of God? Do you think of all that Christ has done for you? He took on human nature and was the incarnate son of God. He was humbled, rejected, abandoned, accused, slandered, suffered and died to display His love.

He came as a baby swaddled in His weakness. He lived a life of poverty with nowhere to lay His head (Matthew 8:20); a life of rejection because He came to His own and they received him not (John 1:11).

He took our infirmity and bore our diseases (Matthew 8:17). He lived a life of dishonor because he was despised and rejected by men (Isaiah 53:3). He sweat drops of blood in the stress and emotions He felt before the cross (Mark 14:30-39).

Jesus suffered and the soldiers spit on Him, shamed Him, and tortured Him. He took no painkillers so that he would feel the true experience of pain that sin caused and gave Himself up willingly unto death (John 19:17-37). What an amazing example of love.

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Worldly love does not come close to representing biblical love. We have summarized how you have benefited from the love of Christ. When you think of the love of Christ have you considered Jesus’ zeal for holiness and His hatred of wickedness. Have you ever taken notice of the many places the Bible talks about what God hates?

I have always said that God loves the sinner and hates the sin but based on this study it is only half right as you will see. I stand corrected and have gained a more accurate picture than that simple phrase can express.

You must ask what does it mean to love a sinner. Unfortunately, even Christians love has been twisted into something that looks more like the culture’s view than Jesus image of love. If hate implies I reject your sin, it makes sense for love to mean that I accept what? Sin! That is becoming rapidly an acceptable definition in our culture; a twisted version of love so you accept a society’s ever-growing wickedness.

You need to communicate to the sinner: “I reject your sin, but I accept you.” Yet the problem is that this over simplified view of love can quickly be twisted without a deeper explanation. You must understand that God’s love is deeper, broader, and higher than a simple, “I accept you because I love sinners.

Consider two aspects of God’s love:

1.      God is love, and yet He will allow any person to exercise their free will and go to hell because of their choice to live in sin.

2.      God is love, and yet His wrath is on anyone who chooses to live in sin (John 3:36).

Our God is love (1 John 4:8) but He is also the God of wrath (Romans 1:18). God loves the world (John 3:16) yet His wrath is currently on any person who chooses to live in sin (John 3:36). He allows a person to choose hell but that does not diminish His love. There is no contradiction in this sentence: God loves sinners, and He punishes sinners.

If you interpret love without understanding or without including God’s wrath and justice, you will have a gushy, post-modern, to-each-his-own, politically correct, cultural worldview of love.

Justice is a non-negotiable aspect of love. If God ignored your sin, His love would be without backbone, or meaning, and you would have never understood the true love of God that loves you enough to confront your sin.

·         Love devoid of justice creates an unloving world.

·         Justice without love creates a legalistic and fearful world.

·         Love and justice create a holy world.

God’s character is perfect, and you need to seek His Word to know Him and His true characteristics. His ways are far above your ways. There is no contradiction in God’s love, but it is not the way with people thus you must seek to understand His whole character.